In 2003, Amsterdam art publisher Artimo asked us to design a catalogue showcasing all their books, a publication that had to be finished in time for the Frankfurter Buchmesse.
We initially designed a rather thick and complicated booklet. However, when the publication was almost ready and due at the printer, the publisher phoned us that he didn't manage to finish the text corrections in time. Which left us with a couple of hours to create something new, something not dependent on text, something simple and unbound. That's when we designed this poster, which we actually liked much better than the booklet we had been working on for several weeks.

The poster is basically an A2-sized sheet of paper, printed on both sides (shown above, the front and back of this poster). On one side we printed the book covers, on the other side we printed a black field, with white boxes reversed-out. Because of the slight transparency of the paper, the white of the boxes radiated through the covers on the other side, making the covers glow with light.

We added 'A-Z' to 'Artimo', first of all to underline the fact that the list of books was in fact alphabetical, but also to fill up some space. Interestingly enough, this poster (that we designed in just a few hours) later turned out to be the starting point for the company's name change (from 'Artimo' to 'Artimo A-Z'), a complete graphic identity, and even a shop interior. See Artimo A-Z (2004).

Poster printed by Drukkerij robstolk (r), Amsterdam.